Essay on an autobiography of a Drawing Copy

I am a drawing copy and my life has been rather interesting at least up to now. For a few months, I don’t know how many, I lay in a shelf at a stationery shop with others of my type, and my exact family. At the shop there were several other items of stationery which men use in schools and offices.

I was neatly placed with a few hundred others of my own clan, and felt absolutely suffocated under the weight of dozens of my brethren in one pile. My place was somewhere in the middle of the pile and I often wondered what must be the condition of my brother who was lying last in the same pile as me.

I felt that he must be crushed and breathless. Anyway we all realized that, what cannot be cured has got to be endured. With this attitude we all lived together, sometimes bored and of course enjoying interesting talk among our customers and our salesman.

We spent about three months in this shop in the same monotonous atmosphere, till, at last one day my turn came to get out of the shop.

One day early morning, a customer came to the shop, and he seemed to be in a great hurry as, it seemed there was some examination he had to conduct and so, he was in a hurry. He bought a hundred of us, and in this number my turn also came.

My master was one Mr. Gupta who was running a school for poor children. He bought us partly to take the drawing examination of the children and some of us would be given as gifts to the winning children.

When he ordered for us, we were counted and taken out of the shelf where we had perched for months. He then got us packed in one big packing case and we were taken to the customer’s car outside the shop’

In this incident I remember how I kept my fingers crossed till the salesman counted me, as, I was hoping that I also come in the count or else, I would be left once again in the shop to bide for my time.

Now that I had been taken out of the shop my life had taken a new turn and I wondered what was in store for me now. Within an hour or so, I realized that, I was in the delicate hands of a little girl who was, I heard very well in drawing and coloring. I was so thankful to God for having given me a cute little mistress to serve as, I was sure she would look after me with great love and care.

To understand my little mistress I took no time for, as soon as I reached her hands, she neatly covered me with brown paper and then thick cellophane paper and then softly put me snugly in a corner of her school bag.

Only four days have gone past and she has amazed me by the beautiful drawings and then the tasteful coloring she has strewn on half my pages.

I agree to people who say that she is an artist; she handles me with such delicate hands and prevents me from being soiled by any one. What I had heard about her being fond of drawing I find to be absolutely correct.

She is always pampering me in comparison to her other books and copies and this is of course just because she loves me and my subject.

I am presently very happy with life and do often thank God for giving me such a loving and caring mistress. Often when I watch my own colleagues with the other children being just scribbled upon, scratched about through the body, and their poor bodies even torn to shreds, I bless my fortune.

It is so heart rending to see my friends in such miserable conditions but, I just cannot help them in any way. My master, Mr. Gupta does tell the children to handle my friends with care but, as we all know children are after children – careless and even destructive.

My little mistress is among the best of children who, in this tender age knows how to take care of objects – even the inanimate To me – God you have been great, I often wonder how I should thank God for giving me such fine fate.

Presently, it is true that, my life is getting on fine, but I do wonder what will happen to me when my mistress draws and colors on all my sheets.

The questions that arise in my mind are, will she preserve me as her handiwork, or tear me to pieces and throw me in the dustbin like my other colleagues? Just now I can only tell myself to wait and watch – as, this is the only possible attitude I can have at this juncture of my life.

Anything can happen I agree but, seeing the tiny angel I do not think she will just tear me and just throw me away, i.e. kill me. I feel so because; after all I represent her own handiwork, her own art, her own imagination.

Being so very loving, how can she ever destroy me? This is the only chance that I can see for my survival. As I write this for you to read, my little mistress is doing her homework and after finishing that, she will draw on my sheets, I do not know how many she will exhaust today.

I of course want her to go slow as, her speed will fix my exhaustion also.